Sew A Pocket Potholder With The Cricut Maker

Sew a pocket potholder. Having recently purchased a Cricut Maker, I couldn’t wait to design a project for it. If you haven’t heard about the Cricut Maker, let me tell you it is a new version of the orignal Cricut. It now cuts fabric with out any backing to stiffen the fabric. The Cricut Maker uses a special rotary blade and mat to cut the fabric perfectly. No ragged edges. Just beautiful cut edges.

I designed this potholder to be cut with the Cricut Maker. You can access the file here. The pumpkin shape is a free cut file with Cricut Design Space. Just search for pumpkin.

You don’t need a Cricut Maker to sew a pocket potholder. The Cricut Maker is another tool that speeds along the cutting process plus making your cut pieces more accurate than cutting by hand.

I have also included cutting measurements if you don’t have a Cricut Maker.

This is the rotary blade on the Cricut Maker that cuts fabric. It is amazing.

These pocket pot holders fit the bill or hand should I say. No more burns. Have you reached into your oven only to burn the top of your hand? No more with this pocket potholder.

Sew a pocket potholder in about an hour.

Have Fun With Mismatched Fabrics.

Having had this plaid fabric for years, I really wanted to use it up. I also wanted to use a contrasting fabric. There was nothing in my fabric stash to match the plaid. Then I happened upon this floral fabric peaking out in my over abundance of fabric scraps. The floral wasn’t particularly fall. Not really what I wanted. Being desperate not to buy anymore fabric I decided to use it. The results came out better than my original vision. Don’t you love when that happens? Sometimes having limited resources gives you the better result.

Layer Fabric and Batting Pieces

Place one back fabric piece right side down with insult bright and cotton batting on top. Layer the other piece of back fabric facing right side up on top. Safety pin layers together so they don’t shift while quilting.

Repeat this for pocket piece using one layer of InsulBright. Since this is the pocket, it doesn’t need more than one layer to protect the top of your hand.

Quilting The Potholder Pieces

I used an open toe presser foot with a quilting bar attached to do a diamond quilt pattern. The quilting bar helps to keep the sewn rows even.You can use any presser foot. If you don’t have a quitting bar, you can draw lines on your fabric with a washable fabric pen and ruler. You can make the spacing how wide you desire. I used about an 1 1/2 inch spacing.

Begin sewing the back piece by first stitching rows across the entire piece. Start at a corner to achieve a 45 degree angle. Then turn your back piece around to start sewing rows int the opposite direction to form the diamond shape.

Repeat this for the pocket piece.

Pumpkin Applique’

Adhere Heat and Bond Lite to scrap piece of fabric. Either cut out pumpkin piece by hand or with the Cricut Maker.

Iron the pumpkin shape onto the middle of the pocket piece. Using a dense zig zag, stitch around the pumpkin piece slowly. It is best to sew slow when appliquéing to get the best coverage.

Zig zag stitch the edges of potholder pieces.

Using a zig zag stitch, sew around all four edges of back piece. Repeat this for the pocket piece. This compresses the edges making them easier to bind.

Using either purchased binding or hand made binding (See tutorial on how to make bias binding here.) Bind the pocket piece.

Sewing the binding.

Cut a piece of bias binding the length of the top of the pocket piece. Lay the binding right side down on the pocket piece that is facing up. In other words, right sides together. Stitch using a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Using a 1/4 inch presser foot is ideal here.

Fold binding over to backside of pocket piece.

Pin liberally so the binding doesn’t move while sewing.

Stitch. I used my clear presser foot so I could see to stitch close to the edge of the binding. Remove pins as you sew. Do not sew over straight pins.

Lay pocket piece over back piece. Align bottom edges to form pocket. Round all 4 corners to make it easier to bind. I use an old cd and rotary blade to round my corners. With a basting stitch, sew pocket piece onto back piece.

Add a hanging loop.

Fold the ribbon in half into a flat loop right sides up. Stitch onto middle top of back of potholder. Sew back and forth a couple of time to secure the ribbon loop.

Sew binding all around the perimeter of the potholder. Use the instructions above to sew the binding. Sew slowly around the corners. These can be tricky. Use lots of pins to hold binding on place.

To end the binding, I simply fold the raw edges under on one end. Then place it over the the other end that has already been stitched. Sew this down, completing the binding.

To make the ribbon loop stand up, flip the loop over to the top and stitch on the opposite side.

That’s it. Finally, no more burned tops of hands when reaching into the oven. Plus you get to choose what fabrics you want to use.